


First Words

by Name_Pending



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Baby Starks - Freeform, F/M, Family, Fluff, Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 13:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11669634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name_Pending/pseuds/Name_Pending
Summary: Catelyn Stark remembers the first words spoken by each of her children. To her dismay, she also remembers the first word spoken by her husband's son.





	First Words

ROBB

 

Robb was about a year old when he said his first word. Catelyn remembered it well - there’s little in the world that compares to hearing your first child speak for the very first time. She and Ned had been spending some personal time with their son in her chambers and it was a relatively warm day. Ned was tossing Robb in the air, making him laugh in delight, and Catelyn was vaguely trying to read while really spending more time watching her family; she adored Robb’s joyful giggles but a part of her hated the way Ned tossed him in the air like that.

After a short while, Ned must have thought that Robb had had enough of the activity for now and he set him down on the ground in front of some of his toys. Robb frowned at being put down and reached up his chubby little arms to his father.

“Papa!” he said impatiently. “Papa!”

Catelyn looked up sharply from her book, looking first to her son and then to her husband. She met Ned’s eyes, and the look of love and pride he wore warmed her heart. She did not yet truly feel like a wife to him all the time, but moments like these gave her hope that their relationship would improve even further. Right now there was nothing and nobody in the world but the two of them and their son.

Ned knelt down and picked Robb up off the ground, tickling him and grinning down at the boy. “There’s a clever lad. He knows his father!”

The pride on Ned’s face proved to Catelyn that this man who she had once thought so distant and almost cold was indeed capable of great love. His smile softened the slight twinge of sadness she felt that Ned had been Robb’s first word, not her.

It shouldn’t bother her at all, she knew, and she scolded herself for caring. Yet she wished that he could have said ‘mama’ first; it stung a little that he spoke first to his father. Still, she knew it was a silly thing to care about and so she let the feeling of jealousy go as easily as it had come.

Before Ned had time to even notice that she had been quiet at first, a wide, genuine smile pulled at her lips and she rose from her chair to kneel beside her family.

“Can you say it again, Robb?” she asked, taking one of his small hands in hers.

“Papa!” Robb exclaimed loudly, clearly excited by the praise and attention he received from speaking. “Papa, papa, papa!”

She and Ned giggled together at their son’s antics, and spent the next few hours grinning broadly at each other as they lavished attention on their clever little boy who repeated his new word between laughs and excited babbling.

 

/

SANSA

 

Sansa was almost fifteen moons old when she spoke for the first time, a lot later than Robb. That hadn’t surprised Catelyn; Sansa was a far quieter baby than Robb had been. Where Robb would have wailed until he was tended to, Sansa simply whimpered a little. She was a delicate babe, but healthy and quiet.

She said her first word while Catelyn was showing her daughter the small sept which Ned had had built for her when she’d first came to Winterfell. Catelyn was determined that Sansa should know The Seven just as she would come to know the Old Gods. She had been talking about the Maid and the Mother when Sansa had started whimpering. Catelyn looked down at her daughter and saw Sansa’s small hand reaching out for a lit candle, tiny fingers grasping expectantly.

Catelyn chucked at her daughter’s distraction by the bright flame and gently pulled her hand back.  
“No, my darling, that’s dangerous. Fire is hot and can burn you, and you must never touch it” she explained, craning her neck down to kiss her daughter’s chubby cheek. “We’ll have to leave the candles alone.”

Sansa didn’t agree with her mother, though, and continued to whimper. She pulled her hand free from her mother and extended it again towards the candle, desperate to play with the bright object.

Sighing, Catelyn moved back a few steps, away from the candle and tried to point out other things in the sept to distract Sansa, but the little girl refused to turn her attention away. She turned her big blue eyes on her mother and pointed at the candle to indicate what she wanted.

“No, Sansa. You can’t touch the candles, my love” Catelyn said firmly.

Sansa whined and reached out again, this time stretching her full body towards the candle.

Catelyn pulled her back with a firm hand and frowned at her daughter. “Sansa, I said no. It’s dangerous.”

Sansa pouted and pointed back at the candle. When Catelyn didn’t react, she looked her mother in the eye and simply said, “please”.

Catelyn froze in place for a second before a wide smile crossed her face. She was glad to finally hear her daughter form a clear, proper word - Sansa had babbled out random syllables for a few moons now, but this was her first real word. Catelyn couldn’t be prouder of her daughter’s first word. ‘Please’ was a perfect word for a lady to learn so early, and it suited her calm and quiet daughter very well.

She pulled Sansa away nonetheless, of course, and carried her from the sept. Sansa whimpered a little but was quickly distracted by the sweet treats which her mother offered as a reward for speaking her first word.

Catelyn offered her a piece of cake but pulled it back just out of the child’s reach when Sansa grabbed for it.

“What do we say when we want something, my dear?”

Sansa looked blank for a moment before she said again, “please!”

Catelyn laughed and complimented her daughter on using the right word as she passed her the square of cake. She carried the small girl out of the kitchens and into her father’s solar, to show off their daughter’s wonderful manners.

 

/

ARYA

 

Arya was younger to start speaking than her older siblings, blurting out her first word at only ten months old. She was a more difficult baby than Robb or Sansa had been, and her choice of first word was a fair reflection of her more challenging nature.

Catelyn recounted Robb’s traditional first word and Sansa’s polite first word with great pride; Arya’s was one that was amusing, but nonetheless a little embarrassing.

Catelyn had been trying to dress her young daughter in a pretty blue dress that she had made herself, and Arya was squirming as if her life depended on it. She was the most restless baby that Catelyn had ever known, never lying still, and she was loud and demanding with it. After two quite easily pacified babes, Arya presented a whole new challenge that Catelyn sometimes feared she was not up to. Already she’d had to invent several new tricks for calming the baby since her old ones learned from Robb and Sansa proved ineffective.

“Now listen to me, young lady, you are going to wear this dress that Mother made you and you are going to like it.”

Catelyn tried to force her daughter’s arm through the sleeve as gently as possible, ever careful not to hurt her, but it was incredibly difficult when Arya was thrashing her whole body around.

“This is not how a lady behaves, Arya” Catelyn said in a warning tone, trying not to raise her voice and alert the servants to the trouble she was having. She had always been insistent on caring for her own children herself as much as she possibly could. “Behave yourself.”

“No!”

Catelyn was so surprised by the word that she stopped trying to dress the baby and Arya wormed her way half out of the dress.

“No?” Catelyn queried.

“No!” Arya repeated.

“Seven hells” Catelyn muttered under her breath, before returning to the awkward task of dressing her fussy daughter.

It took several minutes before a now flustered Catelyn had Arya dressed to her satisfaction, and it took some time after that before the baby was fully settled in her mother’s arms.

Catelyn debated on whether or not she should keep her daughter’s first word to herself; after all, it was hardly becoming of a lady. But she needn’t have bothered trying to keep Arya’s ‘no’ a secret.

After that day, Arya began saying no to almost everything, much to the amusement of her older brother and older half-brother. Catelyn sent both of them glares when they laughed at their baby sister whenever she said it.

She glared even harder at Ned when he laughed.

 

/

BRAN

 

Out of the five of her children, Bran’s was the one that truly melted her heart and gave her the most joy and pride. After Arya’s first word she was a little nervous, though her nerves calmed as Bran grew and proved himself a far calmer baby, almost as calm as Sansa had been, if a lot more active.

When he was a little over a year old, Bran had been sitting sleepily on his mother’s lap, watching his siblings at their games. Catelyn’s three older child, along with the bastard and Greyjoy, were running around the courtyard, Arya struggling to keep up with the older boys and steadfastly refusing her sister’s offer of help.

Catelyn watched the children play, greatly amused by their games and taking joy from their smiles. She glared warningly at Theon any time he seemed likely to cause trouble - he was good at that - because he was older and only playing the game to indulge the girls. He had likely been talked into it by Robb, who was himself getting much too old for these games but was keen to play with his little sisters.

Bran had tried to play too, walking along as best he could with Catelyn’s help at first and then with Robb’s, but he had tired quickly and crawled back to his mother. Now he watched their games as she did, and she alternated her time between watching her older children and talking quietly to her youngest.

She and Bran had a special bond. It had been there since the moment he was born, far easier than her other children, when he had almost seemed to smile up at her in his first hours of life. But the day that he spoke his first word was the day which solidified their close relationship.

While the children ran around Bran turned his sweet little face up to his mother and reached out for hers. “Mama!”

Catelyn felt the grin spread across her face before she thought to reply to her son. “That’s right, my boy. I’m your mama.”

Pride bubbled up in her chest until she thought it must surely be so swollen that it was visible from the outside. Finally, with her fourth child, her special boy, a child of her body had named her ‘mama’ as their first word.

Bran didn’t shout at the praise like Robb had after calling Ned ‘papa’ for the first time; he merely smiled and leant against her breast sleepily.

Catelyn cradled his little body to her, beaming down at him. “Say it again, baby. Say it again for mama?”

“Mama” he murmured, half asleep.

Catelyn closed her eyes contently. “That’s my clever boy.”

She rocked her son to sleep with a wide smile across her face and love and pride filling up her body and soul. The noise from the games of the other children could not disturb her as she drowned it out to fully bask in the moment of pure adoration she felt for her sweet little Bran.

When Ned returned from his duties as the Lord of Winterfell, he found his wife as happy as he had ever seen her.

 

/

RICKON

 

When Rickon spoke his first word, at around thirteen months old, Catelyn was not the only one present. Both Maester Luwin and Robb were with them, in the Maester’s study as he tended to the nasty graze Robb had received during training today.

Catelyn rocked her fussy baby against her hip as she frowned down at the gritty wound on Robb’s arm. She hadn’t seen it happen but Ser Rodrik had brought the boy to the Maester and told her afterwards that Robb would be late to see her as he was with the old man, and Catelyn had been unable to stop herself from rushing to her eldest’s side.

Robb flinched only a little as the Maester picked grit out of the cut and rubbed a salve on it, despite the stinging. Catelyn wondered if he would have reacted more if she had not been there. Robb was old enough now that he tended to act brave in front of his mother, never wanting her to think of him as a child like she did Bran and Rickon.

It was an irritating habit, she found, if a natural one. It was not as irritating as the fact that he would not tell her how he’d gotten grazed so badly during training. As far as she knew, he had been training as he always did, with the other boys in Winterfell, including his half-brother and Theon Greyjoy. She wondered if one of them had done this, and the thought irritated her enough that she unthinkingly tightened her grip on little Rickon, who wailed in response.

She hushed him quickly, apologising. “I’m sorry, my love. Once we’re sure that your brother here is alright, we’ll go to the kitchens and get some cake, yes?”

Robb had already started to protest that he was just fine when Rickon piped up: “cake?”

She looked down in amusement at her son, noting vaguely that both Robb and Maester Luwin had looked over at her third son.

“Cake?” Rickon repeated, as if wanting to be certain he would get the sweet treat.

“Yes, my love. Cake” Catelyn confirmed, feeling herself smile without meaning to.

She felt a mixture of pride, love and exasperation. ‘Cake’ was an amusing choice for his first word, if not a prideful one like ‘mama’ or ‘papa’. It suited Rickon well enough, she thought; he was a bit of a wild child and was always hungry. And nothing could be as ridiculous as Arya’s first word.

“Cake is good, isn’t it, Rickon?” Robb teased.

“Cake” Rickon replied simply, grinning at his big brother.

Catelyn rolled her eyes at the two of them, sure now that she would have to take both to the kitchens to get cake as soon as Robb was cleaned up. She would tell Robb to take him alone, but without her there to supervise, who knew how many cakes they’d make off with before the cooks chased them out.

 

/

JON

 

Catelyn was not unaware of the irony in how, out of all the first words spoken, it was Jon Snow’s that she remembered most clearly.

She had been sitting in the nursery with the boys when Jon was almost a year old - Robb was a bit over a year at the time, so Jon must have been around eleven months old - watching the two small boys playing with toys on the ground. Jon’s nursemaid was there, too, but she left for a short while to tend to something elsewhere. Catelyn was quite used to keeping a grudging eye on her husband’s bastard son while she was in the nursery to watch Robb, so did not react to the maid’s temporary absence.

The Lady of Winterfell attempted to tend to her sewing (a blanket for a baby, either for a future babe of hers or for the one rumours said her sister might be carrying) whilst keeping a watchful eye on the boys, keen to ensure that Robb did not try to climb on the tables and hurt himself.

“Here” she heard Robb say, one of the few words in his still limited vocabulary.

She couldn’t wait until he started forming sentences out of his few words. So far, at a few moons over a year, he had only some simple words: ‘papa’, ‘mama’, ‘here’, ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘food’, ‘mine’, ‘dog’ and, to her irritation, ‘Jon’. It was always nice to hear him speak.

Now she turned her gaze to the boys as Robb repeated what he had said, passing a toy to Jon Snow. She smiled despite herself; it was encouraging to see her son’s kindness even if it did involve her husband’s other son.

Robb picked up another toy and held it out to her. “Mama! Here!”

It was almost worthy of being a sentence, Catelyn thought to herself as she chuckled and leant forward to take the toy knight her son offered.

“Thank you, Robb” she said politely, hoping that he’d soon pick up on ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and add them to his growing vocabulary.

Jon watched the exchange with his curious grey eyes before looking down at the cloth toy Robb had passed to him. Then he turned his gaze to Catelyn and held up the toy to her just as Robb had done. He babbled out something unintelligible and Catelyn blinked down at him.

“Keep it, child” she said, her tone rather colder than it had been when speaking to her own son.

Catelyn was never cruel to the boy but she was not unnecessarily kind to him either. His presence at Winterfell was a blight on her honour and Ned’s, and she felt that he threatened Robb. She did not have to indulge his antics the way she did Robb’s, though she had to admit that he was a far calmer and quieter child than his half-brother.

Jon looked confused, as did Robb. Catelyn understood their confusion - they were both far too young to understand the reasons why Jon was not anything like Robb, why she adored Robb while she only grudgingly tolerated Jon - but chose not to comment, trying to focus back on her sewing. Jon himself might have followed her lead and returned to what he was doing before, but Robb was not so easily refused.

“Mama?” he called, reaching out to her and looking back and forth between her and the toy still clutched in Jon’s small fist. “Mama!”

“Hush, Robb” Catelyn scolded gently. “Mama’s working on something.”

“Mama” Robb said again.

Catelyn rolled her eyes and was about to respond (or simply call the maid), when she heard again, “mama!” This time, it was spoken in a different voice.

Slowly, Catelyn looked down at the the boys. Robb was smiling up at her, and now so was Jon. Clearly the two of them thought they had found a new game, a new way of getting attention.

“Mama” Jon repeated, holding the toy out to her again now that she’d caught his eye.

Robb laughed at his half-brother, no doubt finding it funny that Jon was copying what he was saying. Catelyn herself was not amused in the slightest.

She knew, logically, that Jon didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t know what the word meant, he was just copying what Robb said. Robb was a little older than he was, and it was only natural that he would copy whatever her son said.

That didn’t make it alright.

She felt her heart freeze over as she listened to the bastard’s babbling. Anger coursed through her and she almost shouted at the boy, but caught herself before she started. No matter how angry he made her, she wasn’t about to scream at a child; a lady conducted herself in a better manner than that, no matter the situation. She wouldn’t have the servants whispering about her losing her temper with a child over what they would consider to be nothing. Instead she took a deep breath to calm herself and then steeled herself against the innocent expectation on the boy’s face.

Catelyn put down her stitches and leaned forward to take the toy from Jon, but unlike placing it in her lap like she had with the knight Robb had given her, she simply placed it on the ground in front of him.

“No, Jon Snow, I am not your mama. I’m Lady Stark.” The boy looked up at her, comprehending nothing much of what she said, and she sighed. “Lady Stark. You remember that, alright?”

The boy didn’t answer, though he looked confused and a little upset that she had rejected the toy he’d offered her. Catelyn swallowed slightly, not sure how to proceed. She was never cruel with the child and knew she couldn’t just yell at him, but she had to make sure he knew that he could never call her ‘mama’. She would not tolerate such a slight.

“Mama” Robb said, clearly as confused as Jon Snow was.

“Yes, darling, I’m your mama” Catelyn said, stroking her son’s rosy cheek. “But I’m Lady Stark to you, Jon Snow.”

The bastard was quiet for a moment and she held his gaze resolutely, determined that he would never use that word again. She feared for a moment that he would ignore her and repeat it, but instead he just seemed sad. No doubt he had little understanding of her words and was mostly sad that she hadn’t taken the toy, or was just scared by the ice in her voice that she could not keep from her tone. Regardless, she stared down at the little face he had no business having, such painfully obvious Stark features, and glared to show him that she was serious.

Jon looked down and picked up the toy again, this time twisting it in his hands and not offering it to her. She stood then and stepped back, wondering if he or Robb were about to start up again or worse, start crying, but the two seemed to resume their playtime relatively naturally. If Jon was quieter than he had been, she didn’t let it get to her.

Catelyn walked from the nursery, stopping on her way to Ned’s solar to tell the nursemaid to hurry back and watch the boys. In Ned’s solar, she told him what had happened and that he had to tell Jon not to call her ‘mama’. She doubted he had understood anything she’d said, really, as he was very little, and she needed her husband to talk to him. After all, the bastard was his son, not hers. Teaching him such things was not her duty. Ned seemed sad, but he had understood.

Afterwards, Catelyn never spoke of that incident again, and neither did Ned. And when an innocent, seven year old Jon Snow asked his father what his first word had been, Ned told him ‘papa’, and prayed that the expression on his face seemed truthful.


End file.
